Are you tired of my fundraising posts yet?
It’s okay. I am,
too.
“Moving mountains” is a phrase I have used again and again this
past year. From the first conversation
we had about adoption, issues have loomed like a foreboding landscape before us.
Home study. Dossier. Papers, papers, and more papers. We have to make three
trips to Ukraine. How will that work
with the funeral homes and our younger children? The kids don’t speak English,
so what to do about their education? I worry about attachment issues,
developmental issues, potential medical issues, and a whole host of unknowns. But by far, the biggest mountain that I find
myself staring down is the money.
Our best estimate is that from start to finish the
adoption will cost about $50,000. That does not include the cost of hosting,
which is about $8000 each time. We are hosting for the third time this summer,
so…that’s a lot of money.
Can I be vulnerable for a moment? While we have never been in a position financially
where we could have just written a check for it all and carried on, there have been
seasons when the money mountain would not have been quite so scary. Our call to adoption came at a time when our
financial situation was increasingly worrisome.
Our call volume has been low for a few years at the funeral home, and
our accounts receivable has been high.
Changes in the industry are making our profession less profitable all
the time. I’m not having a pity party
(not today, anyway…although I’ve thrown a few good ones since this all began), I’m
just observing that God chose an, ahem, interesting time to bring these kids
into our lives.
When we decided to say “yes” to God and commit to
adoption, I expected the phone to start ringing off the hook and business to
start booming so we could pay for it all.
It didn’t happen. It still hasn’t
happened.
Instead, we've been given the humbling experience of asking
others to help us. I continue to be
amazed at people’s generosity and awed at how God has provided. At every turn in this process, when it’s been
time to write a check the money has been there.
Often, we’ve only had just enough, but it’s been there.
I hate fundraising.
I hate asking people for money, and I especially hate asking the same
people who have already supported our family over and over again, not just for
this adoption but for our daughters’ mission work as well. I occasionally joke that I’m afraid people
are going to stop making eye contact with me at church for fear that I’ll put
my hand out for money, but the truth is that it often doesn’t feel like a joke
to me. Asking for help, especially
financial help, makes me feel awkward and embarrassed.
There are some who think fundraising for adoption in
general is distasteful. The feeling is
that families who feel led to adopt should not ask others to fund their
calling, but should work and save, and after they have the money set aside,
should then pursue adoption.
I completely understand that opinion and agree that it
has merit. In our case, we were not
seeking to adopt, but God sought for us to adopt, and we are working against a
deadline. Our kids, ages 15, 13 and 12, are
waiting for us now. We have, however, striven
to be respectful and responsible in our fundraising efforts. We have not yet set up any kind of crowdfunding
site because it feels very uncomfortable to me to just ask for money. I'd much prefer to bake you something, sell you
a book, a pretty piece of jewelry, a cool t-shirt, or even a chance to win a
month of meals or a freezer full of beef.
I feel like it’s important to
work for this, and not just expect it to happen. That said, I cannot overstate the gratitude
we have to those who have given us monetary donations. We have received spontaneous, generous gifts, and they have blessed us more than I am able to put into
words. In fact, the Sunday after our
kids went back to Ukraine after our first hosting, we received an anonymous gift of $1000
through our church. We’ve never been
able to thank that person, but that gift was the confirmation we needed from
God that He would provide if we obeyed. That act of generosity, given before we even
asked, changed our lives and our kids’ lives.
So, if that person is reading this, thank you for your faith in us.
We still need about $30,000 to cover the anticipated
expenses of the adoption. I get so
discouraged by that number. I think
about how far we’ve come, and it’s remarkable, but still…$30,000. It’s a daily effort not to despair, not to
listen to the voices in my head that question if we will raise the money, and even
if we do, how we will manage financially once they are home. If we’re just getting by now, how will we
afford three more? What if they have educational
or medical needs we aren’t aware of? Sometimes
these questions come not from my head, but from people in my life, and that’s hard
because I don’t have good answers for them except to say that I’m trusting God
to provide for what he has led us to.
And he is faithful.
It’s been more difficult than I expected, and certainly more
difficult than I would have hoped for, but I’m also seeing a purpose in the
struggle. For most of my 47 years, I’ve plugged
along on my own strength and talents. I
have just enough brains, ability, and resourcefulness to fool myself into
thinking that I can manage on my own. I only called out to God when I found
myself in way over my head.
I have been in way over my head for 297 days. From the moment we picked D, N, and T up at
the airport for the first time, I have been in over my head and I haven’t drawn
a single breath in my own strength since. Every
day finds me before God, pleading for wisdom, peace, strength, grace, patience,
trust, direction, provision, and protection for the kids. No amount of cleverness or planning on my part
could possibly pull this off. When the
adoption is finalized and the kids are home, let no one utter a word giving Dan
and Erin Krabel credit or praise for any part of it. God has done it all, and all glory must be to
him.
My self-reliance
has been dashed on the rocks of these mountains I’m climbing. Nothing has ever stretched my faith or caused
me to seek the Lord like this adoption journey has.
So, please bear with me as I flood your Facebook newsfeed
with fundraising posts. I don’t mean to
be pushy and I don’t want to make anyone feel obligated. I’m just a mom who really wants to bring her
kids home, and I can’t do it on my own. And to everyone who has come alongside us, encouraged us, supported and helped us, the words "thank you" are not enough.
